Britain's biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has reacted angrily to the suggestion from health secretary Andrew Lansley that pensioners should be made to fund the care of other pensioners - rather than having the cost shared amongst society as a whole.

On coming to power the coalition government appointed Andrew Dilnot to consider how care should be funded in the future. One of his proposals was to make all pensioners pay tax or special national insurance to cover the additional care costs - something which the government says it is now considering.

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: "The current care system is in crisis, yet the Dilnot recommendations that the government is now considering won't go anywhere near putting that right. The suggestion is that older people should be made to pay for the care of other older people - yet in every other part of our welfare system we share the costs amongst society as a whole.

Given that these proposals fail to tackle the fundamental problems of unfairness, poor standards and complexity in the care system many older people and their families will feel that a golden opportunity to improve the way in which some of the most vulnerable members of our society are treated has been missed. Instead we need urgent plans to introduce a National Care Service funded through general taxation."